Today, for the first time in my life, I shoveled snow off my driveway.

(Pause while readers absorb this momentous statement.)

I know some of you might be thinking in disbelief, “How can this be your first time? Didn’t your dad make you shovel snow when you were a kid? Isn’t that the point of becoming a parent, so your kids can shovel snow for you?”

But it’s true. I grew up on a farm in Iowa, and when it snowed my dad or big brother would hop on the front-loader John Deere tractor and plow our long gravel driveway. They leapt at the opportunity to do this. I think tractor-driving is somehow connected to manhood. In any case, I never had to lift a finger.

It snowed last night and throughout today, and when I came home from work in the near-darkness of five-thirty at night I looked around the neighborhood and discovered that our driveway was the only one covered in snow. Every other house had an immaculate, dry driveway and sidewalks. Ours were three inches deep in powder and ice.

So I grabbed our $14.99 snow shovel that John and I bought from K-Mart on Friday with the express intent of faithfully shoveling our driveway and walks when it snowed, and I spent the next half-hour breaking it in.

And breaking my back. It turns out that my upper back and shoulder muscles don’t take especially well to heaving ten-pound loads of snow repeatedly onto the side of our driveway.

But let’s focus on the bright side: our driveway is no longer covered in three inches of powder and ice. Mostly just ice with a thin covering of snow that I was too sore to scrape off completely.

I am a driveway snow shoveler. I am One Who Shovels Snow. I am The Lady with the Snow Shovel. I am the Woman Who Must Now Go and Rest Her Back.

For more such funny cartoons see The Iceman Cometh Web site.